Apparatus and method for continuous mining

Abstract

Apparatus for controlling the operation of a mining system including a continuous miner, a tramming conveyor and a load-out vehicle operatively connected to the tramming conveyor. The apparatus includes a master computer processor on the continuous miner and at least one slave computer processor under the direction of the master computer processor for controlling elements of the mining system other than the continuous miner. A pair of parallel data communication highways connect the master computer processor and the slave computer processor and the functional status of the data communication highways is monitored. A radio communication path is provided between the master computer processor and the mining system. The master computer processor operates the mining system in an automatic mining mode of operation when both data communication highways are functional and operates the mining system in a reverse mode of operation if either data communication highway fails to function. In the reverse mode, all mining operations stop and the mining system can be reversed out of a mine hole. The master computer processor operates the mining system in a manual, radio controlled mode of operation if both data communication highways cease to function.

We claim: 
     
       1. A power distribution system for a continuous mining system including a continuous miner, an articulated tramming conveyor operatively connected to and trailing said continuous miner, and a load-out vehicle operatively connected to and trailing said tramming conveyor, said tramming conveyor including a continuous conveyor chain, a plurality of electric drive motors distributed along the length of said tramming conveyor and driving said conveyor chain, said power distribution system having a plurality of power buses spaced along the length of said tramming conveyor from said load-out vehicle to said continuous miner, each of said power buses connected to and supplying power to non-sequential drive motors spaced along the length of said tramming conveyor, and each of said drive motors in said tramming conveyor connected to one of said power buses. 
     
     
       2. A power distribution system as set forth in claim 1 wherein all of said drive motors connected to a particular power bus are evenly spaced from each other along the length of the tramming conveyor. 
     
     
       3. A power distribution system as set forth in claim 1 including four power buses and each of said power buses connected to every fourth drive motor.